Saturday, July 23, 2011

My, what a long, long day!  Today was “tourist day”.  First thing this morning we gathered in our green shirts for an official team photo.  Then we “officially” presented the Jesus Film backpack purchased by Prairie Point Church of the Nazarene and brought by Ron and Jackie Miner to our missionary, Anne Sickel.  Its first use will be on a trip in a week to a remote area in Nicaragua.  Breakfast soon followed and then we were on the bus at 8 a.m. for our sightseeing day.

We drove up higher and higher into the mountains close to the Poas volcano.  It began to get very cloudy and breezy and quite a bit cooler.  It was very green with deep grass, small towns and farms and lots of trees. After about an hour of driving up and around and down again we pulled up to the La Paz Waterfall Park.  This is an absolutely beautiful area in the cloud forest area of Costa Rica.  After paying our entrance fee we started down steps to the first area, an enclosed aviary.   We had toucans flying around and even landing on us.  Morgan held one that kept trying to bite off her bracelets.  The one on Sam liked his glasses and hat.  Then on to other areas such as a butterfly house full of big blue butterflies, a monkey house, jungle cats, hummingbirds, tree frogs, snakes, orchids and many other trees and tropical flowers.  After seeing all that we started down lots and lots of steps to the waterfalls.  We were able to get very close to two of the four thundering waterfalls…one about 80 ft tall and the other 120 ft.  Awesome!  At the end of the trail we were met by a shuttle bus that took us back up to the gift shop where we again walked back down the trail a short distance to a big beautiful open walled restaurant and ate lunch.

After lunch we boarded the bus again for an hour long ride into San Jose.  Great time for a nap!   Arriving in San Jose we drove through the busy city to an area of souvenir shops.  Two hours of shopping and back on the bus to go to the Nazarene Seminary of the Americas where Anne lives.  We had a short tour of the seminary grounds before going to a nice little restaurant close by called Rosti Pollos where we enjoyed a simple meal.   Leaving the restaurant about 8:30 we finally pulled up back at La Finca about 9:30.  After a short devotional time we started packing and getting ready to leave for home in the morning.  It’s been a great time here but it’s time to go home.